PLA Blog

Morning Session

Yesterday, Sandra Nelson told us that the second day of a week-long workshop is always the hardest. The novelty of the new environment has worn off, and you’re not even halfway through the week yet. By Wednesday, you have renewed energy because you’re starting to get accustomed to sleeping in a new environment, and the end of the week is already in site.

Whether it was those factors or the waning of my cold, I did find myself more engaged in today’s activities than yesterdays. The morning started out with another session led by Nelson, who clarified that the general plan of service, or strategic plan that we discussed on Monday is what drives a library’s facilities plan, staff development plan, technology plan, job descriptions etc.

Allocating Staff Resources: Part 2

The bulk of this morning’s session focused on a continuation of Allocating Staff Resources. Nelson explained that the book Managing for Results by Ellen Altman, includes 18 workforms about gathering data to make staffing decisions. These workforms (and all of the Results workforms) are also available online at www.elearnlibraries.com. She used the example of a workform designed to analyze staff time productivity which stunned most participants with the realization that if we assume that all staff spend all of their actual work hours working, when we factor in breaks, vacations, sick leave, etc. they only wind up working about 78% of the total hours that are assigned to their position.

This realization spiraled into a discussion of how much staff time is lost at the water cooler, in meetings, at trainings, and getting settled in and ready to leave the workplace. The result of this discussion was that it is important for managers to be aware of the actual amount of work time that staff has to accomplish tasks in order to avoid assigning more work than can reasonably be accomplished.

It was also recommended that performance appraisal documents identify clearly defined personal goals (unique to each position) in order to measure work progress.

Ways to Collect Data About Staff Activities

We then moved on to a discussion about how to collect data about staff activities. Methods include staff or supervisor estimates, existing records (such as the amount of reference questions answered per staff during a certain period on the desk etc.), self-reports or time logs, in which staff members write down what they are doing every 15 minutes throughout the day to get a picture of how they are allocating their work time, and obtrusive (announced) and unobtrusive (secret-shopper) observation. Pros and cons of each method were discussed. In general staff and supervisor estimates and existing records are easier and faster to accomplish and might be a good first approach unless the situation dictates the need for more specific information.

While no system of gathering data is 100% accurate, as long as you’re measuring the same data in the same way over time, you create useful trend data (in Nelson’s words, “consistent inaccuracy results in accurate trend data.”)

Data collection occurs at the point of gathering resources to select final activities and is essential to make informed decisions. It is important to be careful how we use staff data if we want people to continue to buy into the planning process however. If we use the planning data to justify disciplinary measures, staff may be reluctant to participate in the data-gathering process in the future.

There was a strong emphasis on providing the skills needed for staff to take on new or additional responsibilities.

Types of Workload Analysis

Two types of workload analysis were introduced:

Numeric analysis helps you determine how much you are getting done with the staff you have, and process analysis determines what steps within a task are required to create a measurable output. In short, numeric analysis asks “what” and process analysis asks “how” or “why.”

Participants worked individually and in pairs to complete worksheets that allowed us to use each type of analysis in a library context.

Sacred Cows

One of the morning’s more entertaining discussions was about “sacred cows” – the activities that have been done in the same way and at the same time for so long that no one even wonders if they are effective anymore. Nelson recommended that we involve library staff in identifying sacred cows, and in proposing better alternatives.

Implementing Your Plan: Staff

Nelson wrapped up the morning’s activities with a quick summary of the data needed, issues surrounding, benefits and risks of the following planning issues:

1. Review staff allocations and reallocate as needed
2. Review staff duties and assignments and adjust as needed
3. Review job descriptions and revise as needed to reflect current duties and requirements
4. Review performance appraisal documents and revise as needed to reflect current staff responsibilities
5. Identify training required to ensure that staff can perform new/revised responsibilities and develop a training plan

These issues would most likely be addressed after the final activities related to the strategic plan have been developed.

Afternoon Session

June Garcia took over the training responsibilities for the afternoon session. She recapped our discussion on staffing by suggesting that when making staffing decisions, we consider the following:

- What would it look like on the front page of the paper?
- Would my mother be proud of me?

She also shared the comment of one participant who suggested that our group of workshop participants may be holding onto the sacred cow assumption that all staff are resistant to change, when in fact many staff members may be amenable to it. (This was borne out by my own experience - when I e-mailed my library staff to inform them about this blog, one staff member responded by saying, “I can’t wait to start the planning process. I love the buzz of change!”)

Allocating Facilities Resources

The group seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief as we moved away from staff issues onto facilities, for the simple reason that facilities planning is so much more linear and uncomplicated than dealing with relationships between human beings.

Nine tasks were identified from the forthcoming book on Managing Facilities for Results by Ruth O’ Donnell and Cheryl Bryan:

1. Define space analysis and reallocate project
2. Select project team
3. Pre-planning
4. Identify use and status of existing space
5. Determine the requirements for the activities included in the space and reallocation project
6. Identify and evaluate options
7. Present opinions and seek necessary approvals
8. Make final report and recommendation and get approvals
9. Implement approved changes

As Garcia pointed out, the first eight steps lead up to getting approval for the project, while only in the ninth step do we move forward with implementation.

Garcia suggested that it is wise to combine facilities changes/renovations as much as possible to avoid repeated disruptions of service. She also recommended the free online resource librisdesign for library space planning needs.

Participants then broke into small groups to examine the floor plan of a fictitious library and evaluate what priorities the space allocation suggested. This was an interesting exercise since it implied that you can tell where a library is focusing its energy based exclusively on the amount of space that it has allocated to certain services. For example, the library in question had 16 shelves of adult non-fiction, as compared to two paperback spinners of YA materials. We then used the same floor plan to answer a series of questions on reallocating space.

This was followed by another group case study which asked us to assess the amount of equipment, furniture and storage required to increase a library’s DVD collection. For the purpose of the results books, these terms are defined as follows:

Equipment – computers, AV (CDs/DVDs), sound systems, vehicles to transport, video projectors etc.
Furniture – tables, chairs, workstations, study desks, carrels, etc.
Storage – linear feet of shelving or display, specialized shelving for CDs, paperbacks, media, or the capacity to store program materials etc.

Implementing Your Plan: Facilities

Our final group activity addressed how to implement the facilities plan by considering the same factors (data, issues, benefits and risks) that we considered above for staff issues. Topics to address included:

1. Review current space allocation and reallocate as needed
2. Evaluate current allocation of shelf space and change as needed
3. Review current equipment and replace/add as needed
4.Review current furnishings and replace/add as needed
5. Identify facility-related training needs and develop a training plan

Garcia wrapped up the afternoon’s session with a strong recommendation to keep floor plans up to date and to know how to read them (or hire someone who does) when making planning decisions about space and facilities.

Participants’ Opinions of the Workshop

While all of the information presented today was useful, I felt that the information on staffing presented in the morning’s session was more engaging, in part because of the difficulty of the issues involved with staffing decisions, but also because there was a lot more direct instruction on this topic than there was on the facilities portion of the training (which mostly consisted of group activities).

Participants that I have spoken with seem to be enjoying the training on the whole. One librarian reflected the enthusiasm of the group about the simple fact that Sandra Nelson has given us permission to hold our staff accountable for the work that they are paid to accomplish. Yesterday (or was it Monday?) she stated that we need to keep in mind that our staff members are paid to work at the library. “That’s why they call it work,” she said. “If they called it play, we would have to focus on whether they’re happy. Since it’s called work, it’s much more important to focus on whether our patrons are happy and to hold our staff accountable to do whatever the community and the library have determined will make our patrons happy.”

The same participant also commented on the wealth of information to be gained just from spending time with the other library managers who are participating in this workshop. “Between us, we have thousands of hours of valuable experience,” he stated.

I overheard another participant expressing her enthusiasm over Sandra Nelson’s training style, “[She] is so inspiring,” she stated, “ She’s dropping gems and pearls all over the place!”

As with any workshop (particularly a week-long workshop) participants grew tired by the end of the day. Many still planned on attending a tour of the Salt Lake City Public Library this evening. I hope that one of them will add comments to this post to describe the outing (since I stayed in the hotel room to blog)!

Tags: PLA, Results Boot Camp 9/2005, workshops

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 21st, 2005 at 8:04 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.